I’ve been a little bit busy of late and missed posting some cracking reviews!

First off: Anne-Marie Conde’s June release, The prime minister’s potato and other essays.

1. The Saturday Paper 5 July 2025

2. Australian Book Review, July 2025

A quote from Jim Davidson’s excellent review:

“This is a wonderful book, tightly focused and nicely written. The essays are exploratory, working from the object outward, seeking context. True, sometimes Condé moves beyond the evidence available to clearly differentiated speculation. (‘Here’s a thought’, she parenthesises a couple of times.) But in addition to the manuscript sources, historical databases have rarely been used so effectively. “

3. In the Sydney Morning Herald/Age 1 June

“Historian and museum curator Anne-Marie Conde says she meditated on ‘how the past can be understood through the interactions of people, places and things’. Her titular essay in this diverse and rather lovely collection tells of a curious 1942 gift from one William Frith to John Curtin as a ‘cure for your akes and Pains.'”